May 14th 1943 - George of Saxony† in Berlin

In the afternoon of May 14th there was utter excitement in the Secondary School at the Lietzensee in Neue Kant Street, Berlin. After saying Mass, George of Saxony, the former Saxon Prince Royal, had set out to the Great-Glienicke Lake, at which the secondary school had a bath place.

When Father George, against his announcement, was at four o'clock p.m. not yet back, the Rector was informed, who took up the news calmly. He meant, Father George was certainly by his friend, the Duke of Mecklenburg in Grunewald, whom he frequently visited and where he also stayed over night, to evade the persecution of the Gestapo. Several times Father George had protected Jewish fellow citizens from the arrest by the Gestapo. Occasionally he stood under observation. Several times his room had been searched.

When one inspected toward evening at the lake, one found the dresses of Father George on the beach of the bath premises, but there was not any trace of him. Thereupon the Rector phoned with Moritzburg, and communicated to the Ancestral Seat of the House Saxony that Father George had probably drowned.

The youngest brother, Prince Ernst Heinrich, came dismayed to hear details of the tragic message. But also in the next days there were no new findings. Rumours arose that Father George had been kidnapped or even murdered. Fishermen helped to look for the corpse. Also the water guard and a diver searched the lake all over. For the finding of the corpse a reward of 500 Reichsmarks was promised. Days passed. Finally, three weeks after the disappearing, Father George's corpse was sighted in the reed and saved. It was laid down first on the bank and covered with a boat tarpaulin. Father George had a deep, brown-coloured wound behind one of his ears. One assumed that he had heavily hurt himself under water at a piece of metal, had got stuck and had drowned. The plain-clothes police made investigations, but results were not communicated.

Against 5 o'clock p.m. the mortuary van arrived and brought the corpse into the pathological institute. The Duke of Mecklenburg came to see his friend again. For that reason the coffin was opened again. Also an aunt of Father George arrived unexpectedly. The coffin was then transferred by train to Dresden and was later put on the bear in the family vault of the Catholic Court Church.

Father George had held now and then instructions for our Jesuit Brothers in Berlin. On that occasion he had said once that his death would be a dreadful one - as if he had suspected his end.